Dot balls let us down: Mahmudullah

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal (R) looks dejected after being dismissed for 15 runs during their Nidahas Tri-Series Twenty20 match against India at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Thursday.— Courtesy photo

The pressure of dot balls got the better of Bangladesh batsman as the Tigers suffered a six-wicket defeat to India in their opening match of the tri-series tournament, Nidahas Trophy, in Colombo on Thursday.India restricted Bangladesh to 139-8 in their first meeting in Twenty20 format since their much-talked about ICC World Twenty20 match in 2016 and raced to 140-4 with eight balls in hand.Bangladesh’s stop-start innings never got any kind of momentum despite few batsmen began their innings promisingly as Liton Das made highest 34 and Sabbir Rahman added 30. The Tigers conceded as many as 57 dot balls, which evidently caused the downfall of some of their batsmen. ‘It’s obvious that we didn’t bat well,’ said Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah in post-match presentation.‘We should’ve scored a lot more runs, probably 30 more runs. They executed their plans very well but we should have found ways to make more runs. ‘We need to rotate the strike more often. The dot balls created a lot of pressure,’ said Mahmudullah as Bangladesh now lost their fifth successive Twenty20 internationals. ‘I think we are just one win away from getting a boost. We’re still searching for it and I think we’ll get it,’ said Mahmudullah, who was in charge of the team in last three matches. India captain Rohit Sharma, who was leading the side in the absence of regular captain Virat Kohli, hailed the win as ‘great performance.’‘It was a great performance - something that was expected from us...it was clinical,’ said Sharma as India bounced back from their defeat in the first match. ‘We looked into what went wrong against Sri Lanka and we thought hitting back of a length was a good option. ‘We wanted them to go after the long boundaries. I thought the bowlers executed their plans really well. [They]Came out and did what was asked. Bangladesh will face Sri Lanka in their next match on Saturday.